Stop looking at my vajayjay!
On Grey’s Anatomy, a pregnant woman going through labor yells at a male medical student, Stop looking at my vajayjay!
Oprah, Grey’s Anatomy’s biggest celebrity fan, mentions on her show that she loves the word. Entertainment commentary shows pick that up and now people just can’t stop talking about VAJAYJAY.
OK, so the word IS funny. And I can only imagine how awesome it would be to hear Oprah say “My vajayjay is paining me”. But the better part of me is throwing up in my mouth a little bit. Why do we need cute little euphemisms to describe female body parts?! Why can’t we call it what it is?! Vaginas are not embarrassing, they are not weird, they are not ugly, they are not inappropriate. All women got them. Do we need Eve Ensler to write another play to shake everyone up, yet again?!
What we don’t say becomes a secret, and secrets often create shame and fear and myths. Eve Ensler, The Vagina Monologues
For more, read What Did you Call It? By STEPHANIE ROSENBLOOM of The New York Times.
Oprah, Grey’s Anatomy’s biggest celebrity fan, mentions on her show that she loves the word. Entertainment commentary shows pick that up and now people just can’t stop talking about VAJAYJAY.
OK, so the word IS funny. And I can only imagine how awesome it would be to hear Oprah say “My vajayjay is paining me”. But the better part of me is throwing up in my mouth a little bit. Why do we need cute little euphemisms to describe female body parts?! Why can’t we call it what it is?! Vaginas are not embarrassing, they are not weird, they are not ugly, they are not inappropriate. All women got them. Do we need Eve Ensler to write another play to shake everyone up, yet again?!
What we don’t say becomes a secret, and secrets often create shame and fear and myths. Eve Ensler, The Vagina Monologues
For more, read What Did you Call It? By STEPHANIE ROSENBLOOM of The New York Times.
Labels: feminism
posted by petya at 11/02/2007 07:03:00 AM
8 Comments:
oh, come on, Petya! using a "cute litle euphasism" for something is NOT tantamount to rejecting the thing-itsef as wretched in some way. We do this all the time. I called almost every ex I've had by some pet name, not out of repulsion for their real names, but out of affection.
Also, it seems to me that sometimes when people insist on using the most "clinical" vocabulary possible, it is THEY who are the ones indicating their secret discomfort. Just a thought...
Of course! I absolutely agree!
But could you imagine a similar scene on that very same show where the roles were reversed and the male character was asked to say "Stop looking at my pee pee!" because broadcast execs thought that penis was inappropriate?!
yeah, vaginas are not ugly , pee-pees are:))))
I think it's a way to personalize the vagina. But I wouldn't use my "pet" name in medical environments.
leigh, i'm with you about the use of clinical words to sanitize things we're otherwise uncomfortable with. just this morning i discovered that i can refer to that formerly unspeakable matter in our kitchen as our blatella germanica problem, and to great relief.
but i have to say, there's something that makes me a little uncomfortable about oprah suddenly deciding that she's comfortable talking about her vagina now that she's found a cute little nickname for it. in all honesty i don't watch oprah, so i don't know if she's been talking about things paining her vagina for years, but i'm guessing not.
As for the "vajayjay"/"pee pee" comparison... I think there's a lot more going on here than just what we choose to name the genetalia-in-question. For example, I think "pee pee" is generally viewed as a way of infantilizing (hence, feminizing) the penis, and THAT's why most people would find it objectionable coming our of the mouth of a grown man. (The word, that is, not the actual penis.)
haha,
I don't think most people (above 5 years old) would find it less objectionable if "pee-pee" was coming out of the mouth of a grown woman. (The word, that is, not the actual penis.) I agree that it is infantilizing.
The problem with "vajayjay" is that it is completely misdirected, albeit cute. Oprah talks about her vagina, but she probably means her vulva. The lips of the vulva are the ones producing the monologues, and not the vaginal canal, but the "Vulva Monologues" does not sound as daring and bold. Leave it to popular culture to trample on basic anatomy and insist that you can "look at the vagina" (without a speculum), just because it sounds cute.
But to go back to the original question "Why can't we call it what it is". Of course we call it what it is, but we do that in our private lives, where we make the distinction between the physiological and the sexual terminology for our genitals. Men (and many women) don't get aroused by "vaginas" (or vulvas), but by "pussies", whereas women prefer "dicks" rather than "pee-pees" even though in some all-female conversations they can still refer to "things".
So I guess my point is the "cute little euphemisms" are just public-speak to protect the innocent. In privacy and in confidence we do call those body parts what they are. For us. In our minds.
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